With the launch of the Obama reelection website, the Presidential political season is now in full swing.
Take a close look at the home page of this site, because there’s a lot you can learn from it.
In general, one of the big problems with radio websites is that they are outrageously cluttered with station and advertiser crap. They are about as visually appealing as a pile of dog poo, and they are utterly lacking in a simple mechanism to enter the station’s community along with a clear and easy justification for doing so.
There is almost no emphasis on building a relationship and rarely any notion that by joining the station you would be participating in something bigger than a commercial exercise meant to spam the living daylights out of you.
Contrast that with the Obama approach.
The entire goal of the home page is to lock in a relationship.
The video provides the reason why in the words of those who have already “gotten involved.”
You can “get in” by entering your email or via Facebook – and the entry mechanism is front and center on the main page.
Without contact information and the permission to use it, you don’t have a relationship. You only have traffic.
Maybe you have traffic, anyway.
And like the summer soldiers and sunshine patriots of yore, what’s the point of that?